Friday, April 18, 2008

As happens with all shitty movies, the distributor for Expelled declined to screen the movie in advance for critics. Indeed, we know they kept their advance screenings a tightly controlled series of fundie lovefests, expelling any knowledgeable, scientifically literate viewer if they were able. After all, in a movie that beats the "free speech" and "academic freedom" drums long and loud, it's certainly very important to keep opposing views silent, eh?

But now real movie reviewers are getting a chance to eyeball the film, and the results aren't pretty. It will be interesting to hear how Stein and Mathis and their usual gang of idiots try to spin this as the expected reaction from a liberal Darwinist cabal hostile to competing ideas, considering that these are just movie reviewers who are going to see the film as part of their weekly roster along with everything else. They really can't be said to have a horse in the creation-vs-evolution race. Which is also true about most people who don't make the atheist/science/Christian/creationist blogosphere part of their daily routine. And the movie's emotional caterwauling is unlikely to sway or even interest them. There's such a thing as overkill, and even unsophisticated audiences will recoil if they think they're being beaten over the head.

Expelled is currently tracking at 9% on Rotten Tomatoes. By comparison, here is the critical scorecard for the works of self-proclaimed genius auteur Uwe Boll: House of the Dead: 4%. Alone in the Dark: 1%. Bloodrayne: 4%. In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale: 5%.

Thus I'd like to offer Nathan Frankowski my congratulations on being able to boast that he is a more critically acclaimed director than Uwe Boll.

I've posted some choice reviewers' quotations in the sidebar. Now it will be entertaining to see how the opening weekend pans out. Since Premise Media actually managed to get the thing on over 1000 screens, the heat is on far more crucially than if they'd opened in limited release and then done a regional release pattern throughout the rest of the summer. If they don't score huge numbers this weekend, they're losing their shirts in a way they would not have if they'd just hit smaller markets in 50-100 screen rollouts in succession. Executive producer Walt Roloff perhaps got overly excited at the prospect of being able to boast the widest release ever for a "documentary." But I think he's just a teensy bit optimistic when he goes on to cheer that he thinks Expelled's numbers could exceed the $23.9 million opening weekend of Fahrenheit 9/11. After all, that movie had colossal pre-release hype going for it. Plus Michael Moore was feeding off a zeitgeist. And despite Roloff's apparent beliefs to the contrary, there isn't this groundswell of public outrage over some conspiracy theory about "Big Science" and its suppression of ID as there was in 2004 over the depredations of the Bush administration.

I must say, it will be interesting to sift through the rubble on Monday.

Amusingly, RT has logged a second positive review for the movie (against 20 pans), and this one is from Christianity Today, which you'd expect to be receptive. Yet even they admit the movie is scientifically empty: "...if you're looking for ammo to argue your Darwinist friends under the table, look elsewhere."

I just saw "Expelled" and I must say how happy I am for Ben and his endeavors. The film was very well made and Ben was top notch. I laughed and was saddened by the well thought out message. Richard Dawkins believes in ID!, that cracks me up! God bless you Ben for making this extremely important subject the conversation of so many people. BTW it would be the perfect time to witness/open air preach to everyone right after the film ends. Way to go brother Ben, I will shake your hand and hug you in heaven. I will look for you sneakers!)

b-rad: By what line of reasoning do you conclude that Dawkins believes in ID?

This is just one of the ways the movie distorts. Here's the relevant passage from Dawkins' editorial yesterday in the LA Times.

This technique of arguing against a theory by setting up its most plausible version and dismissing it is commonly used in science and philosophy. The late, great evolutionist John Maynard Smith used it in his 1964 attack on the then-popular theory of "group selection." He set himself the task of devising the best possible argument for group selection. The details don't matter; he called it the Haystack Model. He then proceeded to show that the assumptions that the Haystack Model needed to make were highly unrealistic.

Everybody understood that this was an argument against group selection. Nobody twisted it to trumpet to the world, "See? Maynard Smith believes in Group Selection after all, and he thinks it happens in Haystacks, ho ho ho!" Creationists, by contrast, never miss a trick. When I have raised the science-fiction olive branch to try to argue against them, they have twisted it -- most recently in a movie scheduled to open this week -- in order to proclaim loudly, "Dawkins believes in intelligent design after all." Or "Dawkins believes in little green men in flying saucers." Or "Dawkins is a Raelian." It's called "lying for Jesus," and they are completely shameless.

Anyway, are you just now discovering Dan lives in a world 180° in opposition to reality? Most of that have known that for a year now. Of course Dan liked the movie. He's exactly the breed of uneducated fool it panders to. Smart people aren't duped by this for a second.

"The late Great evolutionist John Maynard Smith has not only become a creationist, but a Christian as well."

Maynard Smith was one of the greatest giants in evolutionary biology. His mind was a national treasury. It is exceedingly rare for such a formidable intellect to succumb to such a mind-numbing fairy tale as creationism.

Does truth matter to either you or Dan? Or is this a case of what I call selfish herdism?

Egghead (martin), do you not understand irony. All atheist including John Maynard Smith, DICK Dawkins, and you will become creationist a moment after they die. Now let me explain this in terms you might be able to undertand J.M. Smith is dead; therefor, is a creationist. You and DICK Dawkins will die hence, the 2 of you will become creationist.

Yeeeah... and people with more than a 6th grade education just don't "get" Larry the Cable Guy and Carrot Top.

["sics" all over]All atheist including John Maynard Smith, DICK Dawkins, and you will become creationist a moment after they die. Now let me explain this in terms you might be able to undertand J.M. Smith is dead; therefor, is a creationist. You and DICK Dawkins will die hence, the 2 of you will become creationist.

Allow me to spell out this in a manner you may be able to grasp: YOU WEREN'T FUNNY, YOU WEREN'T CLEVER. Worst of all, you WERE a jackass. A simple "I was just kidding" would have sufficed, but the, shal we say, "unnecessary dickishness" of your response leads me to believe that you actually mean it.

I could be wrong, though. You might very well just be a rude, unfunny atheist.

As Expelled show your side is afraid of a fair debate with a creationist. I understand, your arguements are weak and your tatics can only involve straw man put downs calling us stupid. You go on believing as DICK Dawkins does. Aliens dropped us off millions of years ago (I think that one came out of Mother Goose goes SiFi). Was it Spock or Mork from Ork? I know you like SiFi, but do you do is not real? Have you ever kissed a girl Maritn? I hope you have a sense of humor. Honestly, I did enjoy yours. The one "go play with the blocks the adults are talking" made me laugh out loud, but try not to repeat yourself next time. I will be praying for you. God Bless you! P.S. If we evolved from monkeys why are there still monkeys?

akusai, let me guess you got your posting name is based off a minor character in a vedio game you play 6 hours a day on mom & dads computer. I must thank you for proving my point yet again. Just like Marty-mart, who is shaking like a frightened chicken after our last exchange, you too can only answer arguements by calling the other side dumb. I understand the question that I possed was silly, but no more silly than Darwin's entire theory. Even if you got every evolutionary egghead together to try and figure it out, they could not answer this silly monkey question. As Soon as creationism and evolution are put on a fair playing field evloution will begin to die. Just like all the ideas coming out of Satan's work shop throughout history attacks have come and gone trying to deney God's word. One after another they have gone down in flames. The Bible has took the attacks for thousands of years and remains the best selling book in the world because it is Truth! Don't be upset that you wasted much of your life believing the lie of Darwinism, many of us have. Believing a lighting bolt struck some mudd millions of years ago and life sprung into existence is even more silly than the monkey question. Once you put the two schools of thought side by side you will see Creationism is right. Where some of us took the Biology and Philosophy classes needed for grauduation, found them to be an interesting intellectual exercise, then got real degrees and real jobs. The people on your side took it to be religion, got degrees in Bio/Phil, so they could get jobs at Starbucks and annoy the shit out of everyone you came into contact with. "I am atheist, there is no God, Christians are all dumbies" is all you people think when your mind is not engaged in the new episode of Star trek. It does not matter when you find the Truth, just as long as you find it before you die. We as Christians only seek to save you from eternal separation from God by introducing you to the only One who can save you Jesus Christ. Heaven and Hell are real and you and I will spend eternity in one of them. I know I am coming form a Christian bias, but creationism is not religion it is science which backs up the Bible. My questions for the day is this:There are those on your side who say they believe Whales evolved from horses. Again I must ask why are there still horses? a)How long did this evolution take? b)Why don't we find those billions of horse/whale (transitional) fossils?My last questionis this -How does a man die on a cross witnessed by huge crowds and rise from the dead? That one is easy He is the Son of God our creator. Jesus is the most important person to have ever walked the earth; no one is even a close 2ed. It is not only because of His influence on history, but because where every human being will live forever is based on their relationship to Him. God Bless You.

People like Martin are very frightened, I just watched an interview of Ben Stein and what really cracked me up is on 16:44 of the interview Ben said that people go into academic life because they are frightened people. Plus at 25:45 RC makes a great point, listen to his argument against laws of inertia against the big bang

Educated people must be frightened, that's why they get educations! I gotta admit, Dan, listening to you always puts me in mind of that line from King of the Hill: "Every time I think you've said the stupidest thing ever, you keep talkin!"

Djr, it's obviously you know absolutely NOTHING about evolution, and that you hate scientists (who you dismiss as "egg heads" - perfectly consistent with your hatred of reason and inquiry and the school-yard bully mentality of beating up on "nerds" and other "uncool" people). Just like a lot of other folk afflicted with the Dunning-Krugger effect, you embarrass yourself whenever you talk about science. Perhaps you even seriously imagine that we're better off listening to you than to the world's leading experts, but that's part and parcel of the type of mentality that believes that you know all the answers just because you've read a book written by nomad mystics. Your world view, apart form being completely retarded and back-to-front, is propped up only by the selfish comfort blanket it affords to millions like you. You care nothing for evidence or intellectual integrity; those things are secondary to belief in a Sky-Daddy, to whom you slavishly surrender any last vestige of your critical thought processes. Expelled was catered exactly for people like you, as it distorted information, told bold faced lies, and fed into creationists' self-congratulatory persecution complex. By the way, genius, Dawkins DOESN'T believe that space aliens seeded life on Earth. Try reading what's actually posted here once in a while.

Ironically, know-nothings like you benefit from the science that makes it possible for you to have computers, antibiotics, modern hospitals and cable TV, and yet you don't skip a beat when given an opportunity to shit on that very science when it tells you things that are contrary to your cherished myths. Suddenly, science is evil and Satan (another imaginary being) is invoked to explain why scientists "hate God" (or why Pastor Ted was having bum-fun with another man). You morons can't go for a few sentences without mentioning Jeebus, even when you're supposed to be discussing SCIENCE. In casual conversation, you pretend that Darwin was wrong, but you act as though he was right when you get a flu shot (or maybe you don't do that either). Evolution is the basis for the whole of modern biology, including pathology and disease control. Don't let that stop you, though. By all means, keep making an arse of yourself by pretending that it's all part of a big conspiracy.

"I understand the question that I possed was silly, but no more silly than Darwin's entire theory."

As opposed to a talking snake, a magical garden, a woman coming from a man's rib, an Ark carrying a pair of every animal "kind", a global flood, people living for 900 years, a Jewish zombie and regular bouts of telepathy between an invisible man and millions of his slaves. Yeah, Darwin's theory is real silly compared to that. It all makes so much sense now. How incredibly dogmatic and God-hating of me not to have seen it before!

"There are those on your side who say they believe Whales evolved from horses."

Ummmmm...no. Whales evolved from wolf-like ungulates that were discovered to have auditory features shared only be cetaceans. Whales are more closely related to hippos than they are to horses (and no, that DOESN'T mean that they came from hippos. It means only what I said it means: that whales are more closely related to them than they are to horses). Here's a bit of education for you (unless you're too "frightened" to actually read through): horses belong to the order Perissodactyla, the odd-toed ungulates. Cetaceans belong to the Artiodactyla, the even-toed ungulates. There is an excellent fossil record of cetacean evolution.

"a)How long did this evolution take? b"

About 10 million years for the land-dwelling ancestors of cetaceans to become fully aquatic.

"b)Why don't we find those billions of horse/whale (transitional) fossils?"

We do find transitional fossils - but since you know nothing about fossils, you expect that there should be "billions". Does it at all bother you that you know nothing about the things that you so confidently denounce? Don't you ever get at least a bit self conscious?

By the way, try this on for size: Ancient serpent shows its leg. Just another example of the many transitional forms that supposedly "don't exist" (because your pastor - not the world's leading palaeontologists - told you).

You, sir, are a complete and total ignoramus. Next time you talk about evolution, try to actually LEARN (shock, horror) a bit about it.

"People like Martin are very frightened, I just watched an interview of Ben Stein and what really cracked me up is on 16:44 of the interview Ben said that people go into academic life because they are frightened people."

Yeah, that was a pretty stupid and pig-headed thing to say, specially when thousands of these "egg-heads" are dedicating their lives to finding cures for diseases by pin-pointing mutations implicated in diseases, trying to find solutions to the world's global warming crisis by investigating cleaner energy alternatives, cataloguing the world's species in order to assist in conservation efforts, or just adding to humankind's knowledge about the world for the sheer fascination of it (the reason that many people go into academia in the first place: because they're interested in things, and believe that humans should do more than just pretend to have the answers by blindly believing in 2,000 year old texts paying homage to an Egyptian sun-god derivative). These are noble, praiseworthy efforts and aspirations, and one shouldn't expect drawling idiots like Ben Stein to appreciate them. Indeed, it's people like Ben Stein (and you, apparently) who are frightened - frightened that the mind-expanding and incredibly beautiful universe we inhabit as revealed by science has nothing to do with the mind-shrinking, boring and parochial fantasies that you swallow as "truth". Now keep on biting the hand that brings you vaccines, TV and images of the Horse Head Nebula, like a good cretin.

Again, I agree, science is a wonderful part of discovering the universe and the dynamics of life. But there is a vast difference between operational science and historical science as you have heard me say in the past.

Operational science can be tested and proven, historical science on the other hand is just a guess based on assumptions because they weren't there and it cannot be validated. It isn't science it is story telling, you watch discovery channel too much.

Let me ask about that link of "Ancient serpent shows its leg",you can't plainly see the wide sweeping assumptions of what that lady was claiming?

"Let me ask about that link of "Ancient serpent shows its leg",you can't plainly see the wide sweeping assumptions of what that lady was claiming?"

Let's look at some of those assumptions:

- this creature is extinct- it shares clear affinities with modern snakes- it had limbs- it is the type of thing we would expect to find if evolution is true (ie. transitional forms that shared a mosaic of characters shared by the two groups being considered, in this case ancient and modern snakes)- vestigial homologues are retained by many modern snakes, and this is also readily explainable by supposing that snakes experienced as diminution of their limbs; vestigial homologues are also something we would expect to find at least sometimes if evolution is true

I fail to see how any of this can seriously be taken to be controversial. If creationists ask for transitional forms, and such transitional forms are revealed, then it isn't for them to the goal posts.

"But there is a vast difference between operational science and historical science as you have heard me say in the past."

There is a difference, but it's the same underlying science in both cases. If it works so devastatingly well in one case, then we are given good reasons to suppose that it is working well in the other. This is because, apart from deriving from the same science, there is a massive degree of convergence of data produced by applying that science. We know that plate tectonics is right, for example, because of several independent but converging pieces of evidence (detection of plate activity by satellites; the magnetic bands and the corresponding age differences along outlying regions of the Mid Atlantic Ridge, and the mirroring of these on either side indicating continental movement away from the volcanic zone; the shapes of continents; and the congruence of biogeography to all this, including finding the same fossil types in different parts of the world, implying that the fossil beds - of the same type of rock - were broken apart and drifted away from one another). No one piece of evidence proves evolution, or plate tectonics, or the Big Bang. It is several lines of evidence; and the more lines of evidence that are saying the same thing, the more sure we can be that they aren't saying the same thing simply by chance.

There is an analogue to this in evolutionary biology: if a population is small, then genetic drift can bring alleles (even deleterious ones) to "fixation" (total representation) in the gene pool by chance alone. In fact, in such a small population, we would not be compelled to invoke selection as an explanation for an allele's high representation. In a larger population, on the other hand, there is more time for selection to come into play, and conversely it is less likely that a deleterious allele could come to fixation by chance because there is more opportunity to weed it out. This is to do with sampling error: the larger a population or sample, the more likely it is that non-random processes will manifest themselves and produce appreciable consequences. If some factor favours heads instead of tails, say, in a rigged game of coin tossing (suppose that the coin is some novelty coin with some mechanism that makes it more likely to fall heads up) it is POSSIBLE (even likely) that, "despite" this, every so often 10 consecutive tails will be produced. But go through many iterations, and some regularity will emerge to expose the underlying asymmetry. If the game was played over, say, 1000 tosses of the coin, you would eventually realise if you were being ripped off or not. The evidence in favour of evolution, while it MIGHT, by some massive cosmic fluke, just represent a long line of tails, is actually almost certainly indicative of an underlying asymmetry; nature has "rigged" the game, and the game is that of uncovering evidence. Processes can be detected when enough entities manifest themselves in ways that are congruent with its explanatory framework, and the "signal" for evolution has been clearly provided through the cumulative effect of many, many independent lines of evidence from many disparate fields.

The magnitude of difference between saying that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old and saying that it is 6,000 years old is akin to claiming that New York and London are only a few yards apart. That's the magnitude of error the creationists would have us believe that the world's scientific community has immersed itself in. You think? I don't. I don't bye it for a second, and I think it's just plain dumb to suppose that so many scientists could get their sums so very, very wrong for so very long when they have access to such multivariate and plentiful data, the technology to detect deviations from their expectations, and the brains to construct a plausible edifice to bind it all together. Sorry to say, but it is absolutely, bleedingly obvious that if the magnitude of error they were partaking in was so gargantuan, there would have been a major paradigm shift by now; that degree of error doesn't last long in science. The Earth's age, and the fact of evolution, are not seriously in doubt. The controversy exists ONLY because many prefer their belief system to the crushing weight of reality.

Lui: it's just plain dumb to suppose that so many scientists could get their sums so very, very wrong for so very long when they have access to such multivariate and plentiful data,

Maybe, if you put on different glasses and see life with a different world view, things would be vastly different for you. I must ask you then, how can so many scientist that believe in creation get it so wrong?

It begins with your presupposition and world view to get the "big picture" For example, Scripture reveals that there was a global flood and that death and disease entered the world after Adam sinned. This enables us to have a "big picture" of understanding geology. So when we look at fossil layers like those in the Grand Canyon, we know they couldn't have been laid down before sin because they contain millions of fossils of dead creatures. Because of what the Bible says, we can consider the possibility that Noah's flood may have been the mechanism to lay down the layers. We can then use observational/repeatable science to test the geology, Chemistry, etc, to see if the evidence is properly interpreted based upon the revelation of Scripture or the belief in millions of years. Creation scientists have written many books and papers showing that observational science does confirm the biblical "big picture" understanding built from the origins account in Genesis. Please read some books on this subject. Here is some information on the subject, look at the bottom for related references.

My question to you then is do you suppose that so many scientists could get their sums so very, very wrong for so very long when they have access to such multivariate and plentiful data? Start with this book

Once again it comes down to your presuppositions, I take an exegesis approach to interpret the Bible and you take a eisegesis or a more extreme approach of a total non-belief. Either way it has helped form your capricious attitude and world view and it will be difficult to come to the same conclusion of the Bible with such polar mindsets.

lui:if a population is small, then genetic drift can bring alleles (even deleterious ones) to "fixation" (total representation) in the gene pool by chance alone.

For what it's worth, a while back I wondered how big this effect was, so I ran a series of simulations of how the frequency of two alleles could vary in a population by chance alone.

I found that in a population of 10,000 individuals, after 1000 generations, sometimes one allele clearly dominates the population, even though neither allele gives the slightest advantage or disadvantage over the other. In smaller populations (down to 100 individuals), one or the other allele goes extinct almost immediately (within about 100 generations).

This test seems to prove, or at the very least is consistent, with the story of Babel in the Bible. Each group separated and formed “common traits” for Chinese or African or Indian or any other. We see this happening in dogs, for example, where breeders breed common traits of dogs together to push out dominate traits. Unfortunately these extreme methods used by breeders like breeding siblings bad traits come out also as dominate.

"Maybe, if you put on different glasses and see life with a different world view, things would be vastly different for you."

If only creationists themselves could even conceptualise a world without God, they might have justice in saying that to someone else.

It's clear that when you talk about presuppositions, you use it merely as an excuse not to have to consider things from another point of view even while you preach it. It's similar to the excuse that humans are "limited in their view of the world", so somehow we must defer to some "higher power" to tell us what's what. Whenever someone disagrees with you, you can just bring out the tired old "it's all about our presuppositions" nonsense. "Well, it's real to me", and all that. It's also clear that what what I actually wrote completely went over your head. This is a tired old game, and I've said what I've had to say. You can either take it away and apply it, or you can continue to believe in archaic myths that rely completely and totally on the very thing you supposedly see in others: assumptions and preconceptions. I'll also ask that you actually pay attention to what's been discovered in biology over the past few decades, things that make NO SENSE from a creationist perspective, like sexual antagonism, selfish genetic elements, genomic imprinting and mother-foetus conflict, etc etc. Please don't bother me with your silly fairy tales (and that's what they are) about Noah and all the bad things that happened after "the fall". That stuff is completely idiotic because it explains precisely nothing (saying that newt poison and the resistance to that poison in Garter Snakes, or that pathogens exist along with sophisticated immune systems that thwart pathogens - and vice versa - for example, are the result of "sin" ignores the elementary fact that sin isn't a biological mechanism but is merely an excuse for not providing one), and has been demolished a thousand times (the reason it keeps resurfacing isn't because the evidence points to it, it's because creationists have already decided that a literal reading of Genesis has to be right, so anything that goes against it can be "reinterpreted" with a convoluted story about sin, and old arguments against evolution can be trotted out as long as they sound vaguely scientific).

Maybe if you actually clued yourself in you'd understand why it's EVOLUTIONARY theory, not creationism, that is put to practical use in disease control, ecology and other areas. You can twist and distort something till the end of time, but it doesn't make your view the right one. All that matters is whether the theory has a good fit to reality.

"It begins with your presupposition and world view to get the "big picture" For example, Scripture reveals that there was a global flood and that death and disease entered the world after Adam sinned. This enables us to have a "big picture" of understanding geology. So when we look at fossil layers like those in the Grand Canyon, we know they couldn't have been laid down before sin because they contain millions of fossils of dead creatures."

In other words, you BEGIN with what you want to believe (that there WAS an "original sin"), and then you see everything as an automatic vindication of it.

Here's something to try: look at what the evidence actually shows without letting your thought processes constantly gravitate back to Scripture. We have layers of strata containing fossils, deposited over millions of years. It's no use saying that this "couldn't" have happened because the Bible says something different; what's the actual EVIDENCE that the Bible is right on this? It's easy to poke holes in incomplete data and find some inconsistencies, and then trumpet this as "overwhelming evidence" that the Noah scenario is the correct one. This is indeed the modus operandi of creationism: search for anomalies (even small ones that can and have already been adequately accounted for by conventional science), magnify their significance and make them appear to be of overriding importance, ignore the context provided by other factors and consider the thing only in isolation, lament scientists for their adherence to "assumptions" (even when they're perfectly reasonable ones that are "flawed" only because they don't agree with the Bible), bellow about how close-minded the scientific community is, and then whine about your paper not appearing in Nature or Science. I bet I could, if I wanted to (and I don't, because I've got better things to do, unlike creationist propagandists who make this their speciality through the necessarily dishonest agenda they're pushing), produce "papers" that show deep flaws in mainstream geology, astronomy and biology. I myself - and the people who would review the paper - would be able to see how I had employed lawyer-talk (ie. bringing out the facts that suit me, nit-picking over the opponent's lack of a 100 percent perfect story, ignoring the context, appealing to "fairness", and lots of self-righteousness thrown in for good measure, all the while glorifying the pursuit of "truth" and the right for the people to know). This isn't difficult. Sorry to say, but the scientific community doesn't have time for this bullshit. But indulge in it all you want. Personally, I really do have better things to do. The only reason anyone ever gives creationist propagandists the light of day is because of their political and cultural acumen. Other than that, they're almost invariably complete charlatans operating on the fringes of respectability. If you're so deluded that you actually, sincerely believe in a magical garden, a global flood and 900 year old people, then I just feel sorry for you, but that sympathy doesn't extend to feigning an interest in refuting all your nonsense. If you had actually informed yourself (also not a difficult thing, and much more honest than faux research) rather that turning yourself into an unthinking sycophant for Ken Ham, you wouldn't have this problem.

"I found that in a population of 10,000 individuals, after 1000 generations, sometimes one allele clearly dominates the population, even though neither allele gives the slightest advantage or disadvantage over the other. In smaller populations (down to 100 individuals), one or the other allele goes extinct almost immediately (within about 100 generations)."

Sweet. The richness and conceptual fascination of evolutionary biology is the marriage of both regularity and chance. Some things are predictable, others are so dependent upon fluctuations that one cannot make good guesses about what way it's going to swing.

First I want to thank you for taking time to discuss these things, you appear to be smart enough to grasp things and it's comforting that you actually engage and respond to what is being said with thought and conviction.

I want to point out some things though. While many scientists may be anti-God, science itself is not. All true science is creation science. Many books and articles and history shows that the majority of science's founding fathers were Christians and Creationists. One would be hard-pressed to find a single scientific breakthrough that required evolution.

Take Robert Boyle (1627-1691) as an example, he is called the Father of modern Chemistry. He was a major contributor in the fields of physics and chemistry by being the first to transform the study of science into an experimental discipline, he also championed the concept that all discoveries should be published, not withheld for personal profit and power (a common practice at the time). He diligently studied the Bible. He learned Greek as a child he also learned Hebrew, Syriac, and Chaldee so that he could read the text firsthand.

"When with bold telescopes I survey the old and newly discovered stars and planets when with excellent microscopes I discern the unimitable subtility of nature's curious workmanship; and when, in a word, by the help of anatomical knives, and the light of chemical furnaces, I study the book of nature I find myself oftentimes reduced to exclaim with the Psalmist, How manifold are Thy works, O Lord! in wisdom hast Thou made them all!" (Robert Boyle 1660. Seraphic Love.)

Another is the Antibiotics Pioneer Ernst Chain (1906-1979) He was awarded the 1945 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. This preeminent biochemist openly opposed Darwinism on the basis of his scientific research. Evolution: a "hypothesis based on no evidence and irreconcilable with the facts." Evolution "willfully neglects the principle of teleological purpose which stares the biologist in the face wherever he looks."

Evaluating evidence is a key component in the search for truth, not only in science but in other areas of life. The ability to identify supporting facts and data is vital for proving or disproving a hypothesis, whether it relates to a scientific theory, a legal claim, or some other matter. There are times, however, when the absence of corroborative data counts just as strongly as evidence in its own right.

I must give credit to the ICR for most of this fascinating information.

BTW Lui, you should attend the conference on Young-Earth Science on August 3-7 in Pittsburgh. It will feature academic scholars from around the world presenting technical, peer-reviewed papers in areas such as foundations of Science, life Science, stellar and planetary Science, Earth Science, and Social Sciences. For more details go HERE

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PLEASE NOTE: The Atheist Experience has moved to a new location, and this blog is now closed to comments. To participate in future discussions, please visit http://www.freethoughtblogs.com/axp.The Atheist Experience is a weekly live call-in television show sponsored by the Atheist Community of Austin. This independently-run blog (not sponsored by the ACA) features contributions from current and former hosts and co-hosts of the show.